Provisional Program as of June 30 Update programs see www.icra.it/MG9/mg9.htm

Inaugural Address

It gives me great pleasure this
morning to participate in the inauguration of this Ninth Marcel Grossmann Meeting,
symbolized by the Roman numeral acronym MG IX MM, and organized by the International
Center for Relativistic Astrophysics (ICRA) at the University of Rome "la
Sapienza."

In fact we have been following
these activities with great interest since the establishment of the Grossmann meetings in
1975 by the Nobel laureate Abdus Salam together with professor Remo Ruffini. We
enthusiastically supported the goal of creating a close interaction between physicists and
mathematicians at an international level to probe the consequences of Einstein's theory
for a deeper understanding of our universe.

After the first two meetings, MG1
in 1975 and MG2 in 1979, both held in Trieste, Italy, the third Marcel Grossmann meeting,
MG3, took place in Shanghai, China in 1982. On that occasion we applauded the effort, done
in close contact with the Italian Foreign Ministery, which finally led to the historical
precedent-setting event of scientists from Israel, South Korea and the Vatican first
entering China to attend an international meeting, even though China had no diplomatic
relations with those countries. This remarkable result achieved for that meeting has
continued to hold for subsequent international scientific meetings in China, clearly
reaffirming the principle that scientific dialog should be kept open among scientists and
held above any political, racial or religious barriers.

In 1985 the fourth Marcel Grossmann
meeting, MG4, returned to Italy and was held right here in Rome. It was on that occasion
that ICRA was established linking "la Sapienza" to some of the leading
institutions working in astrophysics, in China, with the University of Science and
Technology, in Europe, with the Specola Vaticana and the ICTP and TWAS in Trieste, and in
the United States of America, with Stanford University and the Space Telescope Institute.

This further step involved our
University, which extends its roots into the remote past of some 1200 years ago and which
has played a central role through various moments in the history of Italy. Just to mention
a few examples in your field of interest, Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro and Tullio Levi-Civita
were here in the school of mathematics establishing the basis for the mathematical
formulation of Einstein's theory of General Relativity. Mario Orso Corbino was the founder
of that very famous group of young scientists who under the leadership of Enrico Fermi
unveiled to the world so many aspects of nuclear physics.

But in addition to these enormous
successes there have been also tragic moments: "la Sapienza" was severely
affected by the loss of some of its most distinguished faculty members because of the so
called "racial laws."

Still, it was on this campus that a
positive sign of reconstruction was given by a group of young physicists who started a new
branch of physics research just at the end of the Second World War: the study of
elementary particle physics. A unique role was played by Edoardo Amaldi for his
fundamental role in the creation of the National Laboratories at Frascati,in creating the
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) and for his promotion, under the aegis of
UNESCO, of the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva.

All of this scientific structure
has offered opportunities to scientists from all over the world and to a new class of
Italian scientists who have achieved respect and scientific success for Italy.

Turning our attention back to ICRA,
in addition to its many scientific activities in the young field of relativistic
astrophysics, it has also been guiding the further developments of the Marcel Grossmann
Meetings all over the world with the support of the Italian embassies in many countries.

In 1988, MG4 was held in Australia
in the beautiful town of Perth at the celebrated campus of the University of Western
Australia on the Swan River. In 1991, MG5 was held in Japan in the historical town of
Kyoto close to the school of the Nobel Laureate Yideki Yukawa. In 1994, MG6 was held in
the United States of America at the Stanford University campus at the very heart of
Silicon Valley, and finally in 1997, MG8 was held in Jerusalem at the Hebrew University on
the hills of the Holy City where all the manuscripts of Albert Einstein are kept as a
treasure for humanity.

Also the present MG9 meeting,
returning to Rome, is marked by a new activity also promoted by "la Sapienza":
the ICRA Network which will be coordinated by the UNESCO Centre for Astrophysics in
Pescara. We are especially thankful to the Mayor of Pescara, Carlo Pace, for his
contribution in making this project a reality.

Using the new electronic highway of
communication among scientific institutions, the ICRA Network will coordinate, under the
aegis of UNESCO, the scientific work in theoretical astrophysics among leading centers of
research in the Americas, Australia, China, France, Italy, Russia, the Vatican and finally
Vietnam (on behalf of the ten Southeast Asian ASEAN countries).

The fact that a thousand scientists
from sixty-three different nationalities are convened here today to discuss the
understanding of our universe at the beginning of the new millennium encourages us to
expect that this new initiative of "la Sapienza", the ICRA Network, will also be
as successful as the previous ones.

I would like to close my remarks
with the motto that was forged by the founders of the Grossmann meeting "In
understanding the laws of nature, no country can afford the luxury of having another
country think for it." Our University fully supports this philosophy.

I extend to all of you my warm
personal wishes for a successful and enjoyable scientific week in Rome.

Work by two independent
research teams - the Supernova Cosmology Project and the High-Z Team - has shown evidence
using Type Ia supernova at <z> ~ 0.5 that the expansion of the universe is
accelerating.
Observations of the CMB and cluster abundances confirm these findings, while new tests
have strengthen the case for Type Ia supernovae as reliable distance indicators.
In addition to reviewing these findings, this talk will discuss programs which are now
being developed to obtain much tighter cosmological contraints using Type Ia supernovae,
and which should also lead to a much better understanding of their behavior.

The recent understanding of
string theory opens the possibility that the string scale can be as low as a few TeV. The
apparent weakness of gravitational interactions can then be accounted by the existence of
large internal dimensions, in the submillimeter region.
Furthermore, our world must be confined to live on a brane transverse to these large
dimensions, with which it interacts only gravitationally. This scenario gives a new
theoretical framework for solving the gauge hierarchy problem and the unification of all
interactions. It has dramatic implications for observations at future particle colliders,
such as production of Kaluza-Klein states and graviton emission in the bulk of extra
dimensions. It also predicts a radical change of gravitational forces in the submillimeter
range, which can be measured in non-accelerator gravity experiments.

Beautiful observations
carried out in deep underground laboratories in the United States, Japan, Russia, Italy
(LGNS), and Canada with elusive particles called neutrinos (theory provided by Enrico
Fermi) have recently confirmed in a direct way the basic ideas of how the sun shines.
Scientists use neutrinos, which interact very weakly with matter, to reveal details of the
inner workings of the sun in much the same way as X-rays reveal the inner workings of our
bodies. The results of these pioneering experiments provide evidence of new physics beyond
what is in the textbooks (as anticipated by Bruno Pontecorvo). New experiments are
underway in the ice under Antarctica and deep under the Mediterranean Ocean. These
experiments are designed to detect higher energy neutrinos from some of the most distant
and energetic astronomical sources in the universe. The under-ice and under-water
experiments have the potential to test special and general relativity to unprecedented
accuracy and to provide an understanding of the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays.
They may also reveal new types of astronomical sources that cannot be observed with
ordinary light (photons).

The effort to
develop suspended mass interferometers for gravitational wave detection has lead to an
ambitious new set of long baseline interferometers that will soon become operational. The
goals and status of the various projects and planned early physics programs will be
presented. The anticipated sensitivities of these instruments will be compared with
expected source rates, as well as the prospects for using the combined data from the
worldwide network of interferometers for the most sensitive searches.

The lecture shall, in
part, discuss the progress that has so far been accomplished in the investigation of the
global initial value problem in general relativity and, in addition, address the
fundamental open problems that remain to be solved.
In particular the development of the theory of gravitational radiation shall be discussed.
Also, the problem of the formation and structure of spacetime singularities shall be
discussed in relation to the fundamental issue of predictability. Here, the lecture shall
touch on what can be learned from the study of analogous problems in fluid mechanics.

Five resonant-mass GW
detectors are in operation in Australia, Italy and USA. The strongest potential sources of
gw burst in our Galaxy and in the Local Group are today monitored by such instruments.
With the formation of the International Gravitational Event Collaboration, the activity of
these bar detectors passed a phase transition: from the occasional exchange of data
between two groups to the systematic exchange of data among all the groups.
To fully exploit the potentiality of these detectors, R&D programs devoted to the
development of transducer-amplifier chains are in progress.
Advanced bars and future spherical detectors can join with confidence the world wide gw
observatory in formation at the beginning of the new millennium with the first generation
large interferometric detectors.

A new picture of the
GammaRay Burst Universe follows the revolution started in 1997 with the discovery of the
afterglow by BeppoSAX satellite.
By chaining the capability of different instruments aboard the satellite a team of
experimenters, duty scientists and operation engineers succeeded in pointing the burst
location 8 hours after the burst and in detecting for the first time a faint fading source
associated to the burst.
This unexpected discovery was followed by observations, in the locations distributed by
the BeppoSAX Team, with the largest instruments in all wavelengths, resulting in the
detection of the transient source in the optical and radio band and arriving to determine
the distance, the angular size an thence the energy of the phenomenon.

One studies the effect of
increasing self-gravity (i.e. of increasing the string coupling, g ) on the energy and
size of very massive, uncharged (fundamental ) string states. Is is found that the size of
a typical self-gravitating string state of mass M shrinks when g increases, and becomes
comparable to its Schwarzschild radius when g^2 M ~ M_string. Such a compact string state
has (in order of magnitude) the correct number of states to match the Bekenstein-Hawking
entropy of a black hole. This result clarifies previous work by Susskind, and by Horowitz
and Polchinski, on the correspondence between self-gravitating string states and
Schwarzschild black holes. It suggests that the energy levels of (non-extreme) quantum
black holes have a small degeneracy, and are densely distributed.

Cosmic Microwave
Background Anisotropy experiments have recently resolved sub-horizon structures on the
last scattering surface at z=1000. I review the technical advances which made this
possible, the current results and their cosmological significance, with special attention
to the determination of the total mass-energy density in the Universe.

Panchromatic
observations of cosmic gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and their afterglows demonstrated their
cosmological origin and relativistic motions in them. The implied isotropic energy
releases are up to 10**54 erg in gamma-rays alone (i.e., not including neutrinos,
gravitational waves, or high-energy cosmic rays). However, there is now a good evidence
that at least some bursts are relativistically beamed. The GRB afterglows represent highly
relativistic explosions, and their behavior is described well by simple relativistic shock
models. There is also some evidence that at least some GRBs are associated with
supernovae. GRBs occur within the stellar extent of their host galaxies, which appear
typical for their redshifts. GRBs may be usable as probes of the cosmic star formation
history and the intergalactic medium at high redshifts.

Observational evidence
for the presence of a scale 100 - 130 h^-1 Mpc is reviewed. Quantitatively the scale is
manifested by a peak (bump) in the power spectrum of the distribution of galaxies and
clusters of
galaxies, by the presence of secondary peak(s) of the correlation function, and by the
distribution of nearest neighbors of superclusters. The scale corresponds to the mean
separation of rich superclusters across voids. Theoretically the scale can be explained by
certain processes during the inflation which modify the scale-free primordial power
spectrum. Models with modified inflation are compared with observations.

A status report of
Supergravity,the supersymmetric extension of General Relativity,is presented.In its
twentyfifth year from its discovery, the main focus will be on its recent
applications,uncovering various dualities of string and M-theory,black hole physics and
the dynamics of extended objects (p-branes) with their relation to gauge quantum
field theories.

String theory avoids the
well-knwn problems associated with point-like singularities in electromagnetism and
general relativity.
This talk will present an introductory overview of recent developments, with special
emphasis on the role of extended solitons on the non-perturbative structure of the theory.

The concepts of chaos
and unpredictability had radical influence on various areas of physical science during the
recent decades.We know that even classical Newtonian systems exhibit chaos and can be
unpredictable in a way that is as profound as Godel-Chaitin incompletness theorems. We
will review the consequences of this fact concerning certain key astrophysical and
cosmological problems. Among the issues to be discussed will be the galactic dynamics,
dependence of CMB properties on cosmological parameters, the instability in Wheeler-DeWitt
superspace. Computational and observational aspects of those 'chaotic' phenomena,
particularly involving such powerful descriptors as the Kolmogorov complexity -
algorithmic information and random sequences, will be discussed.

Kajita, Takaaki

Super-Kamiokande

Recent
results from the Super-Kamiokande experiment on solar, atmospheric and accelerator
neutrinos.

The goal of the talk is to analyze the role played by
the modern theory of Partial Differential Equations in General Relativity. I plan to
illustrate some of the great success stories of this relationship suh as Positivity of
Mass and refinements of it, the stability of the Minkowski space and the proof of cosmic
censorship for a nontrivial spherically symmetric model.
I also plan to discuss what form this relationship may take in the future and outline a
program of activity, within Mathematics, with highest potential for future progress.

In this talk I review the
evidence for geodesic precession observed in binary neutron stars. New observations and
results are presented, focusing in particular on the binary pulsar B1913+16. These new
results are used to investigate and model the binary system and to make predictions about
its future. Besides reviewing the observational evidence for geodesic precession in binary
neutron stars, the prospects for quantitative tests of theories are discussed. In order to
highlight the observational strategies, an overview of the principles of radio pulsar
observations is also given.

At low mass accretion rates,
black hole and neutron star X-ray binaries have unusual properties. Notably, black hole
systems are as much as 100 times fainter than equivalent neutron star systems. It is
possible that the difference arises because black holes have event horizons while neutron
stars have surfaces. If true, this might be a powerful technique to confirm the reality of
the event horizon. The talk will review the observational data on low-luminosity X-ray
binaries and the relevant theoretical ideas.

Has a viable new model
emerged that is consistent with all cosmic observations: CBR fluctuations, large-scale
structure, supernova observations, Lyman-alpha clouds and galaxy formation? It appears
that this is the case and, most startlingly, the evidence strongly indicates that this
best model requires large amounts of dark energy, some form of the repulsive force
introduced by Einstein as a cosmological constant. Although the true model is almost
certainly unknown, its properties must be close to the cosmologically flat Lambda CDM
model with Omega_m approximately 1/3, Omega_Lambda approximately 2/3, h approximately 2/3,
Omega_b approximately 1/25 and spectral index n approximately 1. The "cosmic
triangle" provides a helpful tool to visualize the current state and evolutionary
path of the universe in dimensionless parameter space.

The discovery of the
cosmic microwave background 36 years ago established the Hot Big Bang model, and
demonstrated convincingly that early epochs in the history of the Universe were very
different from the present.
Studies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have also turned cosmology into a real
physical science: CMB measurements can be used to shed light on areas of fundamental
physics (the half-life of the neutron; the number of neutrino families; the energy density
of the vacuum) as well as to refine our understanding of the evolution of the Universe. I
will review the transition to physical cosmology over the past 3-4 decades, with special
emphasis on the physics underlying anisotropies in the angular distribution of the
CMB.These promise to refine our understanding of fundamental physics as well as to provide
quite precise values of key cosmological parameters. CMB observations already available,
for instance, suggest that the Universe has a flat spatial geometry, in keeping with
predictions of the inflationary variant of Hot Big Bang cosmology. Improved observations
will help refine values for the rate of expansion of the Universe and set limits on the
vacuum energy.

Gravitational Collapse of the Wavefunction: an
Experimentally Testable Proposal

There are powerful
(though disputed) reasons to expect that the enigmatic phenomenon of wavefunction collapse
is a real physical process that arises as a consequence of a tension between the
principles of quantum mechanics and those of general relativity. Accordingly, it is
proposed that the quantum superposition of two stationary quantum states is unstable
if there is a significant mass displacement between these individual states; moreover, the
superposition should decay into one or the other of these stationary states in a
time-scale of the order of hbar /EG, where EG is the gravitational self-energy of the
difference between the two mass distributions involved. This proposed effect is
experimentally testable in technically difficult but feasible experiments. Some of these
experiments will be described, as well as the underlying theory.

The idea
that the vacuum polarisation process occurring during gravitational collapse to a black
hole endowed with electromagnetic structure (EMBH) could be the origin of gamma ray bursts
(GRBs) is further developed. EMBH in the range 3.2 - 10^6 solar Masses are
considered. The formation of such an EMBH, the extraction of its mass-energy by reversible
transformations and the expansion of the pair-electromagnetic pulse (PEM pulse) are all
examined within general relativity. The PEM pulse is shown to accelerate particles to
speeds with Lorentz gamma factors way beyond any existing experiment on Earth. Details of
the expected burst structures and other observable properties are examined.

This talk will begin with a brief introduction
to superstring dualities, M theory, and p-branes. This will then be followed by some more
recent results in the theory of D-branes. These results concern noncommutative gauge
theory on D-branes containing magnetic fields and tachyon condensation on unstable D-brane
world-volumes.

The relativistic
precession model for quasi periodic oscillations, QPOs, in low mass X-ray binaries is
reviewed. The behaviour of three simultaneous types of QPOs is well matched in terms of
the fundamental frequencies for geodesic motion in the gravitational field of the
accreting compact object, for reasonable star masses and spin. The model ascribes the
higher frequency kHz QPOs, the lower frequency kHz QPOs and the horizontal branch
oscillations to the Keplerian, periastron precession and nodal precession frequencies of
matter inhomogeneities orbiting close to the inner edge of the accretion disk. The
remarkable correlation between the centroid frequency of QPOs in both neutron star and
black hole candidate low mass X-ray binaries is very well fit by the model. Some testable
predictions are described. QPOs from low mass X-ray binaries might provide an
unprecedented laboratory to test general relativity in the strong field regime.

Spectral and Timing Signatures of the
Converging Inflow into Black Holes: Observational Evidence of the Existence of a Black
Hole.

Do black holes
interact with an accretion flow in such a way so a distinct observational signature
entirely different from those associated with any other compact object exists? In other
words can the existence of a black hole be solely inferred from the radiation observed at
infinity. An accreting black hole is, by definition, characterized by the drain. Namely,
the matter falls into a black hole much in the same way as water disappears down a drain -
matter going in and nothing comes out. The accretion proceeds almost in a free-fall manner
close to the black hole horizon where the strong gravitational field dominates the
pressure forces. In my talk I present calculations of the specific features of X-ray
spectra formed as a result of upscattering of the soft photons in the converging inflow
into the Black Hole. I will clearly demonstrate that these spectra emerging from the
converging inflow are a inevitable stamp of the black hole.

In September 1999, we performed
the first observation run of the TAMA300 laser interferometric gravitational wave detector
with almost final setup except for the power recycling. We could operate the detector
continuously over seven hours. We have already accumulated several days data and analyzed
it to find possible signals. Preliminary result of the data analysis will be reported.

Among the topics to be
discussed are: basic nonlinear phenomena governed by the Einstein equations with special
attention to the issue of the creation of singularities and their structures; questions
related to the Penrose conjecture on cosmic censorship; the global structure of space-time
due to the evolution of Einstein equation, the relation of global conserved quantities
related to singularity;. whether a nonsingular initial data can give rise to nonsingular
space-time, in particular, several asymptotically flat nonsingular static space time and
their stability; some numerical calculations on gravitational waves

MG9 Social Program

All these events are free for registered participants and
accompanying persons except for the Meeting banquet. Registered particpants who have paid
the registration fee are admitted to the banquet with no additional payment. Extra tickets
for the banquet are available at 100 Euro or 100 US dollars per person on a "first
come first serve" basis.

Monday

9:15am

Group photo on the steps
in front of Aula Magna

7:00pm -
8:40pm

Exclusive visit to Roman
Forum

8:40 - 10:30

Marcel Grossmann Awards
Ceremony, Campidoglio

Tuesday

7pm - 9pm

Inauguration of Art Show:
Form and Sound From Extreme Spacetime

University "la
Sapienza": Museo Laboratorio (behind Aula Magna)

9pm - 10pm

Concert by the
"Bersaglieri" Military Band, Aula Magna

Wednesday

Morning

General Papal audience
for accompanying persons
[tickets available from conference desk]

Additional tours are available by payment to
FASI Congress as follows:

Tours can be subjected to change
depending on weather conditions and number of participants.

A minimum number of 25
participants is requested for each Roman tour. If you are interested in attending one tour
or more, please fill in the enclosed Social Program Form and return it to the Organizing
Secretariat by June 20, 2000.

If due to organizational problems,
the tour or tours chosen will be cancelled, the Organizing Secretariat will propose to you
an alternative tour. Full day tours include lunch.

Visit to Piazza S. Pietro, the Basilica, the Vatican Museums and
to the Sistine Chapel.

_______________________________________________________

Rome and the Baroque
Art

Wednsday 5 July, 200 - Half
day

A walk through the Baroque Art of Rome, visiting the most
representative churches and squares: S. Agnese in Agone, S.Ivo alla Sapienza, S. Ignazio,
S. Maria della Pace with the cloister of Bramante, Palazzo Montecitorio and Piazza di
Spagna, where the Baroque Art finds its major expression in the Fontana della Barcaccia, a
masterpiece by Pietro Bernini.

___________________________________________________________________

Castel Sant'Angelo

Thursday 6 July, 2000 - Full
day

__________________________________________________________________

A Tour of the Appia
Antica

Frieday 7 July, 2000 - Half
day

Walking through The Appia Antica, the most beutiful and ancient Roman street.
You can admire the Cecilia Metella Tomb and the Roman plumbermasterpiece.

___________________________________________________________________

All these tours include the transfer from the congress site and
a professional English speaking guide.

PAYMENT SHOULD BE
DONE BY CASH OR TRAVEL CHEQUES DIRECTLY
AT THE CONGRESS SITE AND WITHIN THE DAY BEFORE THE TOUR CHOOSEN.

FA.SI. Congress ( the
organizing secretariat) will give you all the detailed information (meeting, time and so
on)

MG9 Proceedings

The proceedings will be jointly published in paper form by World Scientific in Singapore and in electronic
form by ICRA at its website http://www.icra.it/mg9. The
on-line proceedings will contain the PDF version of each contribution for direct viewing
with the freely available Adobe Acrobat Reader.

The plenary lectures will be made available on-line in video format with accompanying
audio at the ICRA website. The paper version of each plenary lecture can be up to 20
pages and will appear in both paper and electronic format. If a plenary author needs more
pages, the electronic version can be correspondingly extended.

The chairperson of a parallel session may author or coauthor an article (or designate a
rapporteur in his or her place) of up to10 paper pages, with the possibility of an
extended electronic version. Parallel session participants may have up to 2 paper pages
(an extended abstract containing the main idea and complete references) and up to 10 pages
in electronic format. More extended versions can be negotiated with the chairperson and
the proceedings editors.

The deadline for proceedings submission is December 1, 2000. Please submit both:

(a)

a single .tex file or a .zip file of the .tex file and
accompanying .eps figure files and any additional macro files you use, with filename
"<your_last_name>.zip", with the first commented lines of the .tex file.
specifying your full name and if it is a plenary talk contribution or a parallel session
contribution, in which case the parallel session abbreviation code and session title (in
case of typos in the P.S. Code) should be given, and

(b)

a paper copy, with a separate cover page giving the same
plenary/parallel session information as in the electronic version, including your full
name.

Submission of a manuscript does not mean that it will automatically be included in
the proceedings. Chairpersons will review the papers submitted to their session; certain
papers may be sent to referees at the discretion of the editors and/or chairpersons.When
your file is successfully typeset and compared with your printed version, a confirmation
will be sent to the e-mail address used to submit it. Otherwise a request for a corrected
electronic version of your paper will be made to that e-mail address.